LIFE IN ISRAEL SAAB CONVERTIBLES 8 TO CHOOSE FROM LEASE FOR $499.88* ASK FOR NANCY GORMAN MICHIGAN'S #1 SAAB SALESPERSON 'Based on 51000 dn. wiapproved credit. Closed end lease to qualified customers w/S1000 dn on ap- proved credit lease pymts. 66 mos.. 83.000 mi.. limitation. 8' per mile for excess mileage over 83,000 Lessee has no obligation to purchase vehicle at lease end Lessee has option to purchase of lease end at a price or formula to be negotiated with the dealer at lease inception. Lessee is responsible for ex- cessive wear & tear. 1st paymnt. in advance & 8450.00 refundable sec dep. for units shown. To get total oymnts., multiply pymts. times 66 Subject to 4' use tax and plates LASSIVIAN Telegraph Rd. at Tel-12 Mall Southfield Open Mon. & Thurs. til 9 p.m. SAAB 354-3300 Just Marilyns Sportswear Boutique The Hills of Galilee are alive with the sound of music. Final Summer CLEARANCE 60%-75% OFF After Twelve Centuries, Ancient Theater Is Reborn HUGH ORGEL All Dresses Select Sportswear Fali Merchandise Arrit'ing Daily No charges or layaways All Sales Final All previous sales excluded Just Marilyns Sizes 4-18 20079 W. 12 Mile Rd., Country Village Mall Mon.-Sat. 10-5 356-0493 GIVE YOUR CAMPER A THRILL!! GOODIE BAGS STUFFED WITH FUN! NO FOOD OR CANDY Local & Nationwide Delivery: (313) 626-9050 29594 Orchard Lake Rd. Farmington Hills, MI (Next to Baskin Robbins) 36 FRIDAY, AUGUST 4, 1989 Special to The Jewish News D ozens of archaeolo- gists, scores of stone- masons and landscape gardeners, hundreds of local laborers and squads of young Gadna paramilitary youth movement members worked overtime to complete the restoration of the ancient Roman-Byzantine theater at Beit She'an, and get it ready for its first public perfor- mance on Israel In- dependence Day, May 10. That performance marked the first show at the theater since the eighth century, when the town was destroyed by an earthquake. Half of the $500,000 cost of theater restoration has been covered by a donation from the Jewish Federation Coun- cil of Greater Los Angeles, which was hooked up with the development town of Beit She'an in 1982 as part of United Jewish Appeal's Pro- ject Renewal program. Los Angeles sent a group of 100 people to the Independence Day concert which featured Julius Rudel conducting the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, with Vladimir Atlantov, tenor, and Ludmilla Schemischuk, mezzo-soprano — both from Moscow's Bolshoi Opera House, now basing themselves in Vienna, as soloists. All 2,000 seats in the ancient theater were filled for the gala renewal concert. Beit She'an, during the Hellenistic period, was an im- portant artistic center in the city known as Scythopolis. It was the largest and most im- portant of the Decapolis 10-city ancient Roman com- plex and the only one west of the Jordan River. During the seventh century, the city passed into the hands of the Moslems, but in the middle of the following cen- tury it was destroyed by an earthquake and degenerated into a squalid Bedouin village until a Jewish revival there in the 1950s. But Beit She'an has a history going back before the Hellenistic period, to the most ancient times of the Stone Age. The high tel, or ar- tificial mound, dominating the present excavation site is a layer cake of some 20 strata of civilizations going back to the fifth millennium BCE. In biblical times, the city was held by the Philistines, who, after defeating the Israelites in battle on nearby Mount Gilboa, displayed the bodies of King Saul and his sons on the city walls. It was subsequently cap- tured by King David and became an administrative center during the reign of King Solomon. But the Greeks and Romans did not build their cities on top of the ruins of the earlier sites. Instead, they chose to place their cities at the foot of the tel. While some trial shafts have been sunk into the tel itself, archaeological digs were begun by a group of Philadelphia researchers in the 1930s, searching for the Sound experts say the acoustics from the stage of the theater are 'near perfect. Roman remains at the foot of the tel. Serious digging began in the 1960s, when the area was declared a national park, in part to prevent construction of a modern Beit She'an suburb and to leave the 400-acre site free for later scientific investigation and tourism development. Of that designated area, so far only 3 percent has been excavated, with exciting results. Their main features are the Roman-Byzantine theater, a broad pilaster-lined paved street, an extensive bath house, temples, shops and a Roman amphitheater for sports and horse racing.